Odd and Curious Thoughts [on taking your kid to the hospital]

So I was at the ER today with my son. You parents out there feel me that this is the single most frustrating experience to have as a parent, aside from the stomach flu, peeling legos from the bottom of your foot, scrubbing oatmeal from bowls, pretending to care about football games, and ripping off band aids.

So the nurse was like “are you still waiting for the doctor?” No. We just hover in places of extreme sickness and impending death because there wasn’t a Breaking Bad episode on. #obviously #dowelooklikemorons #freecable

There was no free latte coupon for our wait. Zero discounted co-pay for the four hours of wasted time. I swear this place has gone to seed.

The medical student comes in and is all “your kid’s throat looks fine.” But what about the puss pockets covering his tonsils that my pediatrician saw just three hours ago? “Let me look again,” he says. Smart call, rookie.

Dad was making a pretend stethoscope out of rolled up paper towels and I was blowing up latex gloves into balloons and my son was running around the room like “Par-tay, mothas!” and the doctor walks in at that exact moment. We just drop everything, stand up straight, and try to look super serious. Equivalent to hiding booze behind our backs and burping.

The medical student was having so much fun telling my kid that he had a T-Rex in his ear that I actually had to say “there’s an ear tube stuck in a yellow mass of ear wax in there, dude. Stop poking around before you push it into his brain.”

I didn’t actually say that last thing. I just smiled and went “Oh yay! A T-Rex!”

The trashcan in the hospital room was covered in sticky stuff, with white dots of some kind. Like the one place in the city where things need to be clean and sanitary and some infection is yelling “Look at me! I’m streptococcial alien lumps of doom, ya’ll. Out and proud!”

The sheet on the bed was green. Shouldn’t it have been white? Does this mean it gets puked on a lot and the hospital was like “Oh, screw it. Buy green sheets.” It’s like when company comes and you give them a dark-colored towel to wash their face. I ignore that usually and go for the white ones, wiping off my black mascara with wild abandon.

Laughed OUT LOUD at this – been there, done that. Too many times to count, with each of my kids. Only I couldn’t have written something this spot on and hilarious if I tried for a thousand years. Kudos!!